Summary: Researchers investigated how individuals perceive and process nonordinary experiences (NOEs), such as out-of-body experiences, extrasensory perception, and sensing an unseen presence. Utilizing a newly validated 47-item Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences across a large general-population sample of 5,117 adults, the team separated the event’s raw context from the cognitive appraisal and long-term meaning-making processes that follow.
The study revealed that while one-fourth of individuals report immediate discomfort or suffering during a nonordinary experience, over half (51 percent) report positive long-term effects and personal growth.
Key Facts
- Positive Long-Term Outcomes: 51 percent of general-population participants reported that their nonordinary experience ultimately led to positive long-term growth and personal insight.
- Initial Discomfort vs. Long-Term Meaning: While 25 percent reported immediate suffering or discomfort, and 20 percent noted a net negative impact, the majority remembered the events as meaningful or neutral over time.
- Occur During Alert States: 57 percent of participants reported being fully awake and alert during the event, and 39 percent were alone, demonstrating that nonordinary experiences frequently occur during normal daily routines.
- Differentiating Experience from Diagnosis: The study challenges clinical assumptions by demonstrating that features overlapping with psychosis or dissociation are common in non-clinical populations without signaling underlying mental illness.
- Appraisal Determines Trajectory: Cognitive appraisal, how an individual interprets, frames, and integrates the event, serves as the primary driver of psychological outcome rather than the phenomena itself.
Source: PLOS
One-fourth of people who undergo an extraordinary experience report immediate discomfort, but more than half claim the experience caused positive long-term effects, according to a study published August 5, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS One by Ronald Fischer Instituto D’Or de Pesquisa e Ensino São Paulo, Brazil, and colleagues.
Unlikely coincidences. Out-of-body experiences. Extrasensory perception. Intrinsic to the human condition are extraordinary experiences like these. But nonordinary events can be interpreted in myriad ways: Perhaps Person A finds religion in a near-death experience, while Person B dismisses the occurrence as random chance. In some cultures, nonordinary experiences (like hearing voices) are perceived as supernatural; in others, as a symptom of psychosis.
Whether nonordinary experiences are framed as religious, spiritual, paranormal or pathological, those affected may flourish or languish in the aftermath. This study explored how individuals interpret nonordinary experiences, and which appraisals are associated with the best outcomes.
Fischer and colleagues first validated the Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences, which assesses the universal, cultural and religious dimensions of nonordinary experiences. The researchers asked 160 Brazilian adults to rate the understandability of each query, noting issues like vague language or missing response options. Participants evaluated the assessment’s 38 core questions alongside nine new additions, all of which were modified until an understanding rate of at least 80% was achieved.
The researchers administered all 47 validated questions to 5,117 people representing the general population. Responses suggest that nonordinary experiences are generally interpreted within the same set of beliefs. Specifics include:
- 20% of respondents reported a negative impact from their nonordinary experience, and 25% reported suffering or discomfort.
- 51% of participants said their nonordinary experience promoted positive long-term effects.
- About 39% of participants reported being alone during their experience. About 57% reported being awake and alert.
- Most participants implicated random chance for their nonordinary experience.
- Most participants reported having some degree of control over their experience.
These descriptive results highlight the complexities inherent to processing nonordinary experiences. The researchers hope this information can be used to promote wellbeing and mental health.
Ronald Fischer adds: “Experiences like sensing a presence, having a vision, or feeling as though you are observing yourself from outside your own body are far more common in the general population than clinical diagnosis rates would suggest. We observed that most people in our sample of over 5000 participants who report them are not unwell, and most describe them as neutral or positive — both at the time they occur and also when looking back and reflecting on that experience.”
“Previous research has often failed to differentiate the experience and how people make sense of such diverse and challenging experiences. Our work stands out in that we squarely focus on where and when these experiences happened and how people tried to make sense of them. By clearly separating the context, the experience and the meaning-making processes, the patterns we observe challenge various assumptions that have guided previous theory, research but also clinical practice.”
“For many people such experiences can be meaningful and lead to personal growth and insight. Highlighting these possible positive outcomes is important to help people make sense of them and help to normalize them. Importantly, we hope our work can help to remove stigma by focusing on the diverse ways that people experience and make sense of them. However, we would also stress that if people feel that these experiences interfere with their daily activities, then they should talk to a professional or seek help from somebody that they trust.”
Pedro Fortes adds: “What struck us was the mismatch. These experiences share features with symptoms used to define psychosis and dissociation yet are frequently observed in a general-population sample. Our prevalence study suggests they most often arrive in entirely ordinary moments, when we’re awake, alert and by ourselves, and are commonly remembered as meaningful rather than frightening.”
Jorge Moll adds: “Our findings suggest that how a person interprets an unusual experience matters more than the experience itself in determining whether it becomes a source of distress or of meaning. That has direct consequences for how clinicians and families respond when someone describes something extraordinary.”
Funding: The work was supported by an external grant from the John Templeton Foundation (Grant ID: 62651), an external grant by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnologico (Process: 309085/2023-3) to the last author and internal funding from the Pioneer Science Initiative of the D’Or Institute for Research and Education, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This work was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study.
Key Questions Answered:
A: Historically, clinicians and researchers conflated nonordinary experiences (like hearing voices or feeling a presence) directly with psychiatric pathology. By separating the raw experience from the meaning-making process, researchers can see that identical events lead to distress in some people and personal growth in others, depending entirely on appraisal and social context.
A: Phenomena that mimic subclinical symptoms of psychosis or dissociation are far more prevalent in the healthy general population than clinical diagnosis rates suggest. Because most individuals evaluate these events as neutral or positive while remaining fully functional, experiencing a nonordinary event is not inherently indicative of mental illness.
A: Rather than immediately pathologizing or dismissing the experience, clinicians and family members should focus on how the individual is interpreting the event. If the person frames it productively and experiences no impairment in daily functioning, the experience should be normalized to prevent unnecessary stigma and anxiety.
Editorial Notes:
- This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
- Journal paper reviewed in full.
- Additional context added by our staff.
About this psychology research news
Author: Hanna Abdallah
Source: PLOS
Contact: Hanna Abdallah – PLOS
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Making sense of the extraordinary – An investigation of the content and prevalence of appraisals of nonordinary experiences” by Manabu Kubota, Shin Kurose, Kenji Tagai, Yuki Momota, Masanori Ichihashi, Hironobu Endo, Chie Seki, Sho Moriguchi, Yasuharu Yamamoto, Yuko Kataoka, Ryoji Goto, Takehiro Tamura, Hiroki Shiwaku, Kiwamu Matsuoka, Hisaomi Suzuki, Mitsumoto Onaya, Takahiko Tokuda, Hiroyuki Uchida, Hidehiko Takahashi, Kazunori Kawamura, Ming-Rong Zhang, Makoto Higuchi & Keisuke Takahata. PLOS One
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0353126
Abstract
Making sense of the extraordinary – An investigation of the content and prevalence of appraisals of nonordinary experiences
Individuals around the world report nonordinary experiences that stand out to them compared to their day-to-day or ordinary experiences. Yet, they can be appraised in very different ways, resulting in wellbeing and personal growth, or in marginalization and mental health problems.
One challenge is that there are relatively few systematic efforts to explore possible appraisal processes and the overall contextual features of these experiences. In study 1, we report a validation and extension of a previously designed set of appraisal and contextual questions to the Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences, with a sample of Brazilian participants (N = 160).
The study successfully validated all original appraisal categories with minor modifications and added nine new context and appraisal categories. In study 2, we conducted a prevalence study by administering these questions in a general population sample (N = 5,117) in which individuals reported on one of 38 nonordinary experiences.
Most contextual features and appraisals followed a unimodal distribution approximating a normal distribution. This suggests that nonordinary experiences, however heterogeneous they may be, appear to be interpreted within the same set of beliefs and appraisals, in addition to sharing similar temporal characteristics.
Furthermore, although 20% of participants reported an immediate negative impact and 25% reported some degree of suffering or discomfort from experiences, 51% evaluated experiences as promoting overall positive long-term life effects.
These findings highlight the potential of human resilience and the complex role of nonordinary experiences vis-a-vis protective factors in promoting health. Our results provide new insights into consciousness states and their mental health and wellbeing implications.
